Chelsea Groton Bank CEO to retire
Sep. 7—GROTON — Michael Rauh, president and chief executive officer of Chelsea Groton Bank since 2010, will retire at the end of the year.
Rauh, 63, who announced his retirement internally last week, said in a Zoom interview Tuesday that he intends to continue serving on the boards of a number of local foundations after he leaves the bank, and looks forward to traveling and spending time on Adelie, the 34-foot powerboat he and his wife, Annette DeSilva, own.
Rauh and DeSilva have homes in Mystic and Narragansett, R.I.
DeSilva, who is involved in oceanographic research at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography, plans to retire next September, Rauh said.
"I always was going to retire a little before or a little after she did," Rauh said. "I'm going to get a head start."
Rauh said he and his Chelsea Groton colleagues had been discussing a succession plan in recent years. He said Tony Joyce, the bank's executive vice president and chief operating officer, will succeed him.
Community leaders who had been informed of Rauh's plans were lavish in their praise of Rauh, whom Mary Ellen Jukoski, president of Three Rivers Community College in Norwich and a member of Chelsea Groton's board of trustees, called "an exceptional person and leader." She cited Chelsea Groton's investment in technology, the redesign of its branches and the ongoing renovation of its Groton headquarters as examples of Rauh's "forward-thinking" approach.
During Rauh's tenure as CEO, Groton Chelsea's total assets have doubled, reaching nearly $1.6 billion in 2021. According to the bank's annual report, its profits totaled $17.4 million in 2021, up from $13.1 million the previous year.
Rauh, who spent 19 years with the Washington Trust Co., Rhode Island's largest independent bank, before succeeding Duncan Stoddard at Chelsea Groton, said things were on a sound footing when he arrived.
"I learned a long time ago that culture kicks strategy's butt," he said. "We have a great strategy here but it's the great culture I inherited. I've done what I could to enhance it, to keep us focused on our mission as a mutual bank (owned by account holders). We take on the goals of others as if they were our own goals."
Rauh said he never had a growth plan for the bank, with Chelsea Groton's only physical expansion since he took over as CEO being the opening of a loan administration office in Glastonbury.
"Bigger isn't better, only better is better," he said.
Chelsea Groton has embraced the digital age under Rauh, redesigning its branch offices to serve the needs of customers who no longer need to transact business in a traditional office setting. Rauh and his team visited retailers around the country in an effort to learn what keeps people coming back to stores like those operated by Apple and Verizon.
"We added book clubs, yoga, programming for kids ― in much more comfortable spaces," Rauh said.
The bank got lucky, he said, in taking steps as early as 2015 and 2017 to equip its employees to do their jobs from any location. As a result, when the pandemic broke out in March 2020, they were able to keep working remotely.
In addition to the fresh take on branches, Rauh said he's proudest of Chelsea Groton's recent investment in video technology and its leadership development program for employees. All of the bank's "visually enabled" ATMs allow customers to secure "face time" with a bank employee, an innovation no other bank in the region provides, according to Rauh.
The leadership program, based on what's taught at the Disney Institute in Florida, encourages all employees to be leaders, Rauh said.
After retiring, Rauh will continue to serve on the Chelsea Groton Bank board. Rauh also will continue to serve on the boards of the Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut; Yale New Haven Health; the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center; the Coast Guard Museum Foundation, the Norwich Free Academy Foundation and Providence Mutual, an insurance company.
